The housing industry has been a drag on the overall economy in five of the last six quarters. That doesn't seem likely to change much. Builder sentiment fell sharplythis month amid worries about affordability. Prices have been climbing faster than incomes for years, in part because there aren't enough homes on the market to meet demand. Now with a new tax law that that reduces incentives for homeownership and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, ownership is even more of a stretch.​

Housing starts rose this morning but only slightly. While I don't think this is 2007/2008 again housing has certainly been a drag on the economy this year.

"I bought shares of Apple because they're a good company."

This is what you call the lazy investors, investing process. No looking at price charts, no analyzing targets just buying and hoping it goes up. In fact, I'd be willing to be most of you reading this probably do the same thing.

Below an excerpt from the WSJ this morning.

Lower-than-expected demand for Apple Inc.’s new iPhones and the company’s decision to offer more models have created turmoil along its supply chain and made it harder for Apple to predict the number of components and phones it needs. Apple slashed production orders for all three of the iPhone models it unveiled in September in recent weeks.Forecasts have been especially problematic for the iPhone XR, Apple’s new lower-price model. Around late October, Apple slashed its production plan by up to a third of the approximately 70 million units it had asked some suppliers to assemble between September and February, Yoko Kubota, Takashi Mochizuki and Tripp Mickle report.

​The stock has traded really well the past few years but with all things, it needs to sell off to 're set'. Someone sent me an email yesterday and asked me if I thought it was on sale and ready to buy. I hate these emails so I ignored it. (FYI, it wasn't a student, or I'd had answered).

I had to share the image to the left as I thought it was funny considering this sell off.

Final thoughts on the market: While I think we see a snap back rally this week I don't think this is a situation where 'stocks are on sale' and you go in and buy for the hold. This is a situation where you go in and buy then get rid of them a few days later.

If pressing a few buttons to do that seems like a lot of work then you can be sure one of the advisors at the big firms will be glad to take your money and under-perform the market and get their fees, so there's always that.

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Sort of like your 401K or retirement accounts. The ones that you hand over, check maybe once a year and then hope that there's enough there when you retire. That's blind risk.

It feels safe because you don't have to see it or think about it on a daily basis. It's the reason most people never take their own money management into their own hands. Seeing a loss here and there bothers them. Two years ago I had a student angrily email me because they lost $1,000 trading futures.

$1,000 gone. Sad. But let's be real here. Your 401K and retirement fluctuates a hell of a lot more than that and if you saw it you would be on the phone with your advisor looking for them to tell you a story to calm you down and make you feel all warm and cuddly inside. The truth is investing has fluctuations and no I'm not talking about the ones where you buy a stock, it drops 50% then you tell yourself; "It's a good company, I'll hold it for a while because it will come back".

What I'm talking about is the face is that you need to define how much you want to earn each year. If you have $900,000 and you want 10% a year you sure as hell don't need to have all $900,000 diversified in stocks, mutual funds and bonds to just make $90,000. And if the thought of making $90,000 from the markets is unthinkable to you there are two issues:

1) You don't have enough capital to invest2) You prefer blind risk and don't like to see a loss

This is, in my opinion, why most people wait too late to plan for retirement or even take control of their finances because not thinking of the risk at hand is easy. It's the ones that stare risk head on and find a solution to it that make the returns in the markets and in life.

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SUMMARY:​VXX in a range, depending on the broader market direction we could go up to 36 or down to 29. Understand the flow of the market, and find the range where price reacts, and you can make money.

First off Happy Veterans Day, and thank you for your service to any service men & women out there!

I can remember when I started to get interested in trading and tried to go all in one a few trades and failed, having the market go against my trade time and time again was very frustrating. I tried some different methods watch videos on YouTube in the effort of trying to figure out what the secret sauce was to timing the market and being consistently profitable. I want to tell you that I have found it and that I am timing the market perfectly every time, but that would be a lie. What I can tell you is that understanding how the market flows has made my trades better, but that does not mean I win every trade.

Take for example this monthly chart; if we look at the past year, we can see clearly where the price has reacted(grey boxes). The stock market is always creating patterns that we can use to our benefit for getting in or out of trades. In the image below you can see how price increased when it arrived in the lower range(confetti) and how it decreased(comet) when it entered the higher range.

Right now we are at the start of a bullish trend on the VXX, which could potentially mean we are staring at a broader bear market, this is still not confirmed. Even if we do not end up selling off the VXX can be an excellent tool to create profitable trades in these market conditions of large swings. Below is my daily chart for VXX with a note on what I plan on doing this week. Feel free to comment or ask me questions on why I have these price targets.

Based on Landshark's trade plan, I have found consistency and developed a general understanding of flow and how price reacts in certain areas. So after seeing my chart, you may be asking yourself, how exactly do we know the top and the bottom? My answer would be, use history, see where price reacts and you will find your range. If you are having trouble finding ranges reach out to one of our instructors here at Landshark we will be glad to help you. We also have our Core Foundations of Trading (CFOT) course that can help you with understanding price charts and market patterns.

Good luck trading this week and be sure to thank those around you who have served this great country for the sacrifices they have made for all of us.

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Daniel Bustamante | Coach

I think too many times we get caught up in discussing the best stocks to buy, what indicators to use and other items that we forget possibly the most important one; routine.

Routine is arguable the most important part for any investor or success entrepreneur. Take for example today. It's Sunday which usually means for me that I'll review the markets from last week and try to look for 2-3 ideas to use this week to trade and make money from.

I like doing it this way because I don't day trade and I don't believe in being at the computer all day long in order to make money from the markets. I use this alert tool on Think or Swim that reminds me when its 11:30am EST - so each day I get a text and bell notification that 11:30 am is here (this is the European markets close). Usually the market tends to be done for the rest of the day at this time but I set the reminder to help me to get to other important tasks at hand.

I find it easier to work in scheduled windows like this. This goes on for most of the week except Friday's because I rarely put on new trades on Friday and it's mostly consistent of taking off old positions, good or bad.

I wanted to write on this topic today for some of the newer investors who may read this blog. When you're starting it's all about getting into a routine. At first the learning curve takes some time but you'll notice within a years time a routine start to develop and it's from here where it tends to be smoother sailing.

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Daniel Bustamante | Coach

So here we are two weeks after we had not one, but two CNBC Markets in Turmoil Specials. You have to love the financial media - they love to put on a show.

The question you should be asking yourself is what did you end up buying during the sell off? If you're like most investors the answer is probably nothing. You'll wait for a few more days of stocks rallying then think "hey this is green maybe it's a good time to buy it" - Wrong.

Sure your 401K and retirement accounts look better today than they did 10 days ago but did you really learn anything from these recent events?

Odds are the volatility will die back down a little here but we will set up another few red days likely in the next 2-4 days, maybe we'll get another markets in turmoil? Fingers crossed.

In other news TLRY woke up from it's slumber yesterday and I realized the stock had options you could trade on it. With implied volatility on them at +200% it makes for some great premium selling opportunity.

Again some of you are going to want to know 'why' the stock is up. You're going to read news articles written by a journalist who is just getting out their daily required quota and then you'll do whatever you can to make what they say fit your investing thesis. Why is it up? Who cares. The price chart tells you now that you can probably short it or if you understand what I said above start selling insurance on the stock.

Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past Performance is not indicative of future results. With regard to any testimonials posted on this site, please note that any references to performance depends on each individual’s unique skills, time commitment effort and capital. Individuals sharing their results have not been compensated and any results have not been independently verified. Results may not be typical and individual results may vary.﻿